• The title says it all… but a few quick things first:

It has been a busy December so far.  We started the month with our new album As the Dark Against My Halo ranked #1 on the DAC (German Alternative Charts).  Its the first time that one of our albums has occupied the top slot on any major chart as far as we know.  We have had a few #1 singles over the years, but never an album.  I am really proud of this disc and seeing it go to number one is really a good feeling.  If you haven’t picked up a copy, it would make a great Christmas present- even if its yourself that you plan to give it to:-) Get it from iTunes or Amazon!

As most of you know we will be heading back to Europe to play a few shows… namely The Christmas Ball Festivals, but also a number of other Club and theater shows as well.  In all we will be out for about 2 and a half weeks with a show every night starting on the 25th. Unfortunately that means we will be on the road over the Christmas and New Years holidays, as well as Jessica’ and my 5th Wedding Anniversary (The 5th day of Christmas).  Its going to be hard but if all goes well it will be worth it.  We will have Anmi with us and I am hoping that we can make our time on the road into something special for her… I really want her to have a good time, so keep your fingers crossed.  Maybe Santa will find the bus.  Maybe we will have snow!

In addition, It will be the first European tour for our new dancers Ally Knight and Stacia Hamilton.  I know we have not given them a proper introduction yet, but we will try and get Bio pages together for them as soon as we can.  Until then, heres a little pic:-)

If you are a fan of the band in Europe and can make it to one of our shows, please come out and support our Christmas Tour.  It would be great to see as many of you as possible… And we plan to have plenty of copies of our new disc at the shows.

• But I need to get to the main point of my post… Sorry, here it is:

I wasn’t sure I would be able to get it finished.  But I did…

For the past few years I have started a little tradition of my own by recording a new Christmas song for the fans and putting it out a week or two before Christmas.  With the tour preparations, I was afraid that there wasn’t really enough time.  But I put in some late night hours and happily I have made something I think is really special.  Its called Tabhartas Dé, and I was inspired to write it by a few old traditional Irish prayers and blessings I found.  I think that it is a unique addition to the world of Christmas music, and I hope you will give it a chance.  As with the other Christmas tracks I have written or recorded in the last few years, it is available here as a free/donation-ware download.  If you like it please consider making a donation via paypal.  If not- No problem, no fee is required to download it or any of the other Christmas songs .  Its just really appreciated.:-)  I am putting up an AAC & an Mp3 file… and I will make it available on a trial basis as a full quality WAV file.  The AAC(iTunes) file should include the lyrics and cover art embedded in it already.  Otherwise you can download the art and lyrics below.

Click cover image for full size artwork.

 Lyrics (Tabhartas Dé)

I hope you enjoy the song(s) and I wish each and every one of you a Happy Christmas & a wonderful Holiday season:-)

Live Love Be Believe

Rogue

Here they are: The Christmas Songs

Tabhartas Dé (MP3)
Tabhartas Dé (AAC)
Tabhartas Dé (WAV)
Anmi’s Christmas (AAC)
Anmi’s Christmas (MP3)
O Holy Night (MP3)
O Holy Night (AAC)
A Promise Made (Wedding Day) (MP3)
A Promise Made (Wedding Day) (AAC)

There is no fee to download. If you like the songs please consider donating. Any amount is appreciated:-)

We are playing at the Christmas Ball Festivals. Here is a fun little web advertisement:-)

www.christmasball-festival.de & www.protain.de

1. Sales of the new album have continued to look promising.  We have been ranked in the Amazon.com charts for electronica and landed at #1 for our September sales on Isotank’s top 10 chart.  Cruxshadows was featured in Orkus, Sonic Seducer, Zillo, and Gothic in the past month, and our European tour was a big success overall.  Still, it has become very difficult to reach everyone with the news of our new release.  We are extremely reliant on word of mouth and fan enthusiasm to reach many potential listeners. We would like to encourage all of our fans to help us spread the word about our new album.  We need to increase our club play as well.  If you know a club DJ or internet DJ that might be willing to spin Cruxshadows, please encourage him or her to get in touch with us via our website. ( cruxshadows at thecruxshadows dot com )

Having said that,

2. I am proud to let you know that As the Dark Against My Halo has debuted at #8 on Deutsch (German) Alternative Album Charts.  We have had a number of songs show up on the Singles Chart over the years, but this is our first CD that has appeared in the DACs album based charts to our knowledge.

And while we are on the subject of whats going on in Germany

3. We will be performing a number of shows in Europe in late December and early January.  At the center of our trip to Europe is The Christmas Ball Festivals, a traveling indoor festival that will kick off on Christmas day and continues for a few days afterwards.  The Festival is planned for Köln, Hannover, and Berlin and will feature Eisbrecher, Project Pitchfork, The Crüxshadows, and The Wars.  You can get more information on the Christmas Festivals in Germany at their website ( www.christmasball-festival.de ).  We will have more information on other dates in Europe in the next few days, so stay tuned.

4. As many of you already know, we will be headlining the Dark Alternative stage at the Movement Magazine 20 Year Anniversary Party in jacksonville Fl.  Other artists at the 3 stage mini-festival also include Voltaire, Ego Likeness, DJ Rommel (from Razed In Black), Peter Pepper, Grandpa’s Cough Medicine, Paten Locke, and much more.  Goth-Industrial, Rock, Rebel Bluegrass, Alternative Hip Hop… pretty much everything just outside the mainstream.  Tickets for the Nov 9th show are still available for $20 per person.  The event will be held at Brewsters Megaplex.  You can find out more info at the Movement Magazine Website ( http://movementmagazine.com/xx.html ).  We should have a few surprises in store, so if you can make it to Jacksonville on the 9th we look forward to seeing you.

5. Today the online underground zine Carpe Nocturn features The Crüxshadows on the cover and an in depth interview with me (Rogue) that addresses a wide range of personal thoughts and behind the scenes insight.  Overall a very good (although long) interview that I think most of our fans will really enjoy.  Carpe Nocturn is sort of an oldschool glue and tape style underground zine that has made the difficult jump to digital format.  Its free and it showcases a lot of what is lost in our online world- the way they used to do it:-)  http://carpenocturnemagazine.com/

6. Finally… We now have a free app for both iPhones and Androids.  You can get it here- http://www.reverbnation.com/mobile-app/668/thecruxshadows

Thats it for now- just a quick update.  I will be back with more news very soon.

Until then…

Live Love Be Believe

Rogue of CXS

Both Jess and I are on a number of panels at D*Con which you might want to catch as well.  The most important is probably the Hour with The Cruxshadows that happens on Friday at 1pm.  A few others include The State of the Goth Scene friday evening, the Dragoncon After Dark Contest where Jess and I will be Judges, and Project CosPlay on Saturday at 5:30 where Jess will be participating.

As always we will have our merch booth where you can get all kinds of CXS goods as well as autographs from band members at various points throughout the day.  Hopefully we will see many of you there.

Rogue

Cruxshadows Live in Germany- photo Max Michaels/ www.movementmagazine.com

Its an exciting if not slightly stressful time for The Crüxshadows.

We’re in the midst of our DARK HALO Tour in Europe (Germany, Belgium, The UK, & The Netherlands), the new album “As the Dark Against My Halo” is about to be released on CD (Aug 3 in Europe, Aug 8 in the USA) & as a digital download (Aug 3 in iTunes worldwide), and our favorite annual event DragonCon in Atlanta GA is only a month away! Its all happening too fast!

The New album is, in my humble opinion, by far one of, if not the best CD(s) we have ever put out.  I am particularly proud of it.  And seeing as its about 78 minutes long it has plenty of bang for the buck.  As the Dark Against My Halo will be presented in a Digipack similar to our refreshed versions of Ethernaut and Wishfire, and also in this case the cover art is done by ‘yours truly.’  It is of course the first full length since 2007′s DreamCypher and it pretty much picks up where the last album left off.  Its both dance driven and introspective, edgy and passionate, and tied together by the kinds of hooks people have come to expect from us… but at the same time I took some chances and really challenged myself as a vocalist.  If you can’t tell, I am really excited about it.  Please pre-order your copy… or if you need more convincing we have put out a preview of the whole CD on youtube to give you a taste- basically a minute or so from each song to let people know what the CD will be like.

The link to the preview is here, please check it out.  And don’t be afraid to subscribe to our youtube channel.

If you can’t wait for our beautiful Digipack it should be available as a digital download August 3rd in the iTunes store (DRM Free!).  Other stores will follow in the next few weeks, including availability in a number of subscription services if clouds are your thing.  Here is an image of the final cover:

Cover for As the Dark Against My Halo

So we have been playing a lot of the songs from new album throughout our European Tour, and the response has been overwhelmingly positive.  Things have been tough the last few years, but I really feel like everything is headed in the right direction, and the live fan response really reinforces that.  We are doing everything currently within our power to promote the new CD, but we really need our fan base to get behind this disc and help spread the word to everyone and anyone.  Unfortunately there is not a lot of money available to buy advertisements etc:-(, but the strongest advertising is the kind you can’t buy: word of mouth.  This CD represents so much to us… and we have overcome a great deal of hardship to complete this disc, please consider helping us to create the ground swell the album really, truly deserves.   Blog it, tweet it, facebook your friends, email, Vampire freaks, put a sign on your car, knock on the neighbors door and tell them about it, be creative- basically whatever you are willing to do- please do it… As we travel to venues all around Europe in our big purple nightliner (thats a bus for those of you not in the know:-) ) I have become acutely aware of how many people are actually behind us.  It is humbling… and moving.  If we can just all of us make a noise at the same time, I know the world will hear us…

On a side note, I’m sure there are a few live concert posts from the current tour.  But I just saw this fan footage from our shows and thought I would drop it into my post.  There are probably better performance clips out there, Audio is obviously from a point and shoot-but i thought it was cool and the dancers looked amazing.  Email me if you find others we should let people know about.

Angelus Everlasting

Halo

intro + Valkyrie

July 31st we play in Göttingen.  If you live in this area of Germany and are able to come to the show, I have good news: an email from the director of Wishfire Records in Europe that says we will have pre-release copies at the show.  That means this show will be the first to have access to the new CD.  I can hardly wait to see them:-)  It also means that barring the unforseen, Dresden, Berlin, Goessnitz, & Mannheim will also be able to buy the CDs at our live show!  In the United States we will of course have them for DragonCon, and we will be available to personally sign copies.  I am looking into whether it will be possible to sell signed copies for a few weeks in the USA online as well… I’ll let you know if we can swing it:-)

On a personal note, I am really happy that my daughter Anmi has been with us on tour.  She is so amazing, I can’t begin to tell you.  Jessica and I are so proud of her.  Shes 15 months Old, but she is so much more aware and alert than she should be.  Anyway, enough of my daddy pride… but in case you haven’t seen the photo of her on stage:

Anmi before A CXS performance Dark Halo Tour

And speaking of photos- Max Michaels of Movement Magazine has been traveling with us and documenting much of the tour in photographs.  If you are interested, he has a facebook page dedicated to his photo impressions of our tour.   Feel free to check it out at

http://www.facebook.com/CruxshadowsEurope2012

Additionally, since we secured the rights to Crüxshadows back-catalog earlier this year we have been busy releasing or re-releasing many of our past CDs as digital downloads under the Wishfire Records Label.  This means that now when you buy most CXS titles, a good percentage of the money will actually get to Crüxshadows.  We even made available digitally Night Crawls In…

I guess that about sums things up.  And as its very late, if I write any more it will have to be in the next few days.

Much love to you all-

Live Love Be Believe

-Rogue, of The Crüxshadows.

Since Dancing Ferret Discs announced in 2008 that it would no longer be releasing new material, The Cruxshadows have been hard at work on recording new songs and releasing them through their own label, Wishfire Records. A legal dispute between Dancing Ferret Discs and The Cruxshadows resulted in some older Cruxshadows titles going out of print. We are pleased to jointly announce that the dispute has been resolved, paving the way for Wishfire Records to release these recordings on their own.

Dancing Ferret Discs and The Cruxshadows helped each other grow considerably during their ten years of collaboration. The past three years have seen the band accomplish great things on their own, and they show no signs of slowing down.

Dancing Ferret Discs and The Cruxshadows would like to jointly thank all of the fans who have supported our efforts over the years.

-The Cruxshadows & Dancing Ferret

Hopefully this means good things for the band going forward.  I will have a lot of new and exciting information to post very soon as a result.  Stay tuned True Believers…

Live Love Be Believe

Rogue

(please note: if you are here for the Christmas songs and don’t want to read the update post, there is a link to each song off on the right hand side under Download & Donate as well as at the bottom of this blog entry. Sorry for any confusion)

I know. I have not posted any real news for quite a while. Almost a year. The truth is a lot has happened in my life that has made juggling everything really difficult. The news blog has been one of the many casualties of my inability to manage time effectively.

It has been some kind of a year though…

THE BABY

In 2011 Jessica and I had a baby. Her name is Angelina Miette, but we call her Anmi for short. She is my first and only child, and she is quite possibly the most amazing person on the planet. Ok, I’m perhaps a bit biased, but I really feel that way… and I’m not the only one. She can steal your heart with her smile… its absolutely true. Needless to say, this little blue eyed wonder has occupied a great deal of my time, and it has been difficult to get things done. For those of you who have not seen her, here is a snapshot.

How can I not be wrapped around her finger ???:-)

The delivery and the birth were really difficult. Jessica labored for 36 hours unmedicated before being transferred to a hospital for an emergency C-section. Unfortunately, Jessica needed more recovery time than we had planned… It put us behind on our plans for touring and releases etc, but in the end, we know it was all worth it. Who knows, maybe she will take over from her Daddy and keep Cruxshadows alive one day as the new lead singer, or maybe she’ll be a astrophysicist, or a dancer, an artist, or maybe a poet, or perhaps she’ll play football in the NFL, or soccer, or go to the olympics for swimming… Who knows? Or maybe she’ll just be whomever she wants to be. If she’s happy I think its all good by me… Whatever she becomes, I am proud to be her Daddy.

It might be a good time to say how proud I am of Jessica as well. She has become an amazing Mommy. I love both my girls:-)

BEHIND THE SCENES

Its no secret the business of selling music has been terrible. While fewer and fewer people are buying music, Independent bands like CXS have found it harder and harder to get our CDs onto any retail shelf space. A lot of the CD store chains are gone, and the “Mom and Pop”s are getting fewer and fewer in number. Amazon is becoming the last bastion of CD sales it seems…

iTunes and other digital retailers have become the main way to reach fans, and get new people to listen. I think in a lot of ways CDs are becoming a concert or mail order item. If I can find a good fulfillment service we will start selling CDs and merch on the website. More to do there for sure. Everything takes time…

This year our legal issues continued regarding the rights to Cruxshadows music. I try and stay vague here intentionally, but there is so much I would really like to tell the fans. I just can’t do it without jeopardizing elements of our situation. The whole thing is just wrong on so many levels. But honestly… I refuse to be a victim, and it’s like I said in Quicksilver, “the future belongs to the brave.” The current state of things and everything leading up to it has unfortunately eaten up a lot of my time and resources. While I can’t go into details, I think its fair to say these kinds of things have a way of disrupting everything and making the whole business of writing and playing music very difficult. Fortunately our position is a strong one, and I have a great deal of confidence in my lawyer. He teaches entertainment law so he knows what he’s doing. I just wish all the nonsense about the music industry wasn’t true.

One way or another I hope to have a lot of the confusion worked out in 2012, but your continued support is really appreciated. The emails you’ve sent, your tweets, and your words of encouragement are what keeps me going a lot of the time. If I didn’t have the fans to remind me of what the music means to them, I am not sure where I or Cruxshadows would be.

THE MUSIC

And speaking of the music…

In September we released our latest single Valkyrie, but it had only digital download in itunes and a limited physical access to the market until mid November. In its initial release, it sold enough copies to place it in the top spot on Billboard BUT it was not charted because a clerical mistake somewhere out in the world reclassified our CD as an “album” instead of a “maxi-single.” There is no way to go back and chart it retroactively. It sucks but whats done is done. Sometimes it feels like somebody has it out for us. But I think Valkyrie is still a great track. You can get it in iTunes etc or via Amazon.com, as well as a few other options..

We also re-released a remastered Ethernaut & Wishfire albums. Ethernaut is available now in Amazon and iTunes. Wishfire is available currently in iTunes and very soon on Amazon. Both are now in a great new Digipack with all new artwork.

More good news… The new album is coming in 2012, although its still not yet finished. It is titled “As the Dark Against My Halo” and I think that so far it is looking to be something really special. I will have more on that in a future post…

AND FINALLY CHRISTMAS

Here it is!!!! HAPPY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!!!

The point of this news blog entry was Christmas, right??? Well I have a new holiday song for you all!!!.
I love Christmas:-) Jessica and I even got married at Christmas. It really is the best time of the year.

When I announced on twitter that I was going to do a Christmas track again this year a lot of people wanted to know what song. Well I worked on a “Silent Night” rendition that I may finish one day (or not), but I decided halfway in that I would rather do an original Christmas song. Its dedicated to my little girl and its called Anmi’s Christmas (Red, Green, Silver, and Gold). It means a lot to me and I hope that it will come to mean something for you too… As before its offered as free/donationware. You can have it and download it for free. No strings. If you like it, I would really appreciate it if you could make a donation… Whatever its worth to you. I know that money is tight for everyone. It should only be here for download for a limited time, otherwise you should be a ble to get it in iTunes at some point in the near future. Last years rendition of O Holy Night and A Promise Made (Wedding Day) are available to download here as well if you missed them last year.

I may make some tweaks to it in the future, but I really wanted to get it out to the public before Christmas. I did the mastering myself so I hope it sounds ok.

Here are the links. I have included 2 file types- an mp3 & an AAC. You will need to right click (PC) or Control+click (Mac) on the song title below to download that file. A quick side note: I added new ID3 tags to Anmi’s Christmas on monday the 12th at 4pm, so it might be worth it to download the file again if you got the song file before then:-)

Anmi’s Christmas (Red, Green, Silver, & Gold) (MP3)
Anmi’s Christmas (Red, Green, Silver, & Gold) (AAC)
O Holy Night (MP3)
O Holy Night (AAC)
A Promise Made (Wedding Day) (MP3)
A Promise Made (Wedding Day) (AAC)

Here is a cover I added for the song:-)

Thank you all. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to everyone, wherever you are. Much happiness to you.
Live Love Be Believe

Rogue

I have a lot to talk about- but for right now… I just have to say….

Valkyrie, our new single, is now available in iTunes.

more details are on their way and I will post even more details in the next couple of days:-)

It has been an awful long time since I posted any news. I apologize, but I have been a little… well… preoccupied:-) This is a relatively short post considering all that is going on… but here goes.

The Big Announcement!

As many of you have already been made aware, Jessica and I are having a baby. It is our first child and we are really excited. The most recent sonogram revealed that we will be having a little girl. We have a picture and she looks beautiful:-) We are keeping her name a secret until she is born… in case we change our minds or something:-P

Here's a photo of our little girl

Some Fans are Concerned…

Having a baby will certainly present new challenges for Jess and me, and obviously for the whole Cruxshadows project. But it is not the end of the band… So please don’t worry about that. Cruxshadows is not only my life’s work, it is my livelihood, and it is more important now than ever before that we continue moving forward. I have a baby to support afterall.

Which brings me to the next topic…

The Experiment.

I have spent the last few months in the studio trying to get the foundations for the new album together. Things are not going as smoothly as I would like, and I keep finding myself desperately trying to stay on track. I know that money is very tight for everyone, present party included, but I need to do something to bring in some revenue. So I have an experiment I would like to try…

I know a lot of you love Christmas and the holidays that surround it… I really love it. Halloween to New Years is my favorite time of year. Jessica and I got married on the fifth day of Christmas in ’07, so it is our anniversary as well:-) Anyway, for years I have wanted to record a Christmas song and this year I finally did it. I recorded “O Holy Night” which has always been one of my favorites. I know some of you may not be as fond of it as I, but if you do like the track I am proposing a shareware concept. From now until the 12th day of Christmas (that is about 3 weeks from now) I will put the ‘O Holy Night’ track AND the re-edited version of ‘A Promise Made (Wedding Day)’ in honor of our anniversary, online for download. There is a donate button below with the links to the songs. You can pay “something” for the songs. You don’t have to pay anything… I know that not everyone has spare funds this time of year, but if you can and you like the tracks, we really appreciate it… whatever you think its worth. If not, consider it a Christmas present from the band:-) After the 12th day of Christmas the songs will be removed from the website. We are submitting them to iTunes currently, so they can be purchased there if you miss things, although I am not sure if it will be in the iTunes store in time for Christmas. If the songs seem to do well offering them as shareware, then we will see about doing more direct offerings in the future. If not, we will chalk it up to experience. Feel free to send us your feedback and let us know what you think about the whole thing… Oh, one more thing. Because so many people have asked: If you wish to use “A Promise Made (Wedding Day)” in your own wedding, there is no problem with that… none… We would be honored

Anyway…

Here are the links. You will need to right click (PC) or Control+click (Mac) on the song title below to download that file.

O Holy Night (MP3)
O Holy Night (AAC)
A Promise Made (Wedding Day) (MP3)
A Promise Made (Wedding Day) (AAC)

Speaking of iTunes

The Cruxshadows will be releasing more of our back catalogue in iTunes and other digital download sources in the next few weeks. We will keep everyone notified of when the titles actually go back up. We are revueing which titles need remastering at this point…

Thats it for now. I’ll try not to be such a stranger. Remember you can follow me on twitter (thecruxshadows). I’m a lot better about keeping up with that.

Happy Holidays to everyone-

Live Love Be Believe

Rogue

I have a lot to post…

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times”- Charles Dickens

I have good news and bad news. Things have been all over the map, and we as a band have had a few bad breaks and face a difficult road ahead. Externally we are near the height of our career. We are coming off our tying our highest charting single ever with Quicksilver, and have just started our own record label with Wishfire Records. Behind the scenes things have been wonderful… and terrible. We have made the transitions necessary to make the future very bright, but at the same time are putting out fires left and right. There has been a significant amount of stress generated by our fortunes as of late, but depending on how you look at things our lives are in peril… or better than ever:-) Those two things do happen together sometimes. Life has a strange duality in everything when you think about it.

Before I get into the meat of things, I just wanted to say that I just had a birthday.  It was one of the better ones.  Being born on July 4th (Independence day) means that people usually have something else to do.  But my friends, my family, and my fans made it really nice for me.

Thanks:-)

We have relocated…

In April of this year we moved from Tallahassee Florida to Jacksonville Florida.  The two cities are about 200 miles apart, but Jacksonville is a much bigger city (13th largest in the US by population, 1st in the contiguous US in terms of size ).  It is located on the Atlantic coast of Florida, and centered around the St Johns River (Like the Nile, it is one of only a handful of rivers in the northern hemisphere which flows north).  Its beautiful here; beaches, wetlands, the River etc.  Additionally,  its nice to be in a city with a skyline… although we will definitely miss Tallahassee.  (But not the heat. It is still very hot here, but with the ocean it averages about three degrees less than Tallahassee during the summer… yay!)

Jessica and I have moved into an amazing house built in 1904 in one of the historic districts;  we really love it. Its gorgeous. Just the kind of place We have always wanted.

The neighborhood has made us feel very welcome.  Some of the other band members now live a block over from us, and the studio is very close to everyone.  Speaking of which, the new studio has finally been finished, and I believe that the move will provide an exceptional situation for us in the future.  The band is very happy in the new studio, and it is far better set up than anything we have had in the past.  Here… take a peek:-) The next album will be from here…

2010, so far has been… well, hmm…

Most of our fans are aware that Cruxshadows was robbed in the beginning of the year.  We have tried to keep from overreacting, but the reality is that the theft took us to the brink, and even now the future seems uncertain and difficult.  They got all of our tour earnings, and we still have debts that we have been unable to cover, and equipment that still needs to be replaced or paid for.  Many of you have helped us out, and your support is greatly appreciated.  We are thankful that we have such a loyal and supportive fan base. Without you I am not sure how we would have kept going.

But there are additional difficulties that have served to compound things.  Without going into the details too much, Cruxshadows has been tied up in a “legal dispute” with some of our former business partners that has had a fairly negative impact on our ability to tour, release music, and sustain ourselves financially.  It’s frustrating, for me in particular. I have put so much blood, sweat, and tears into CXS… so much of myself. To others my art is just dollar signs. I have tried to make all the right choices, but in the end it seems all of those cliches about the music industry are more or less true.  It sucks, but we are confident that the law is on our side, and we will do whatever is necessary to protect our rights.

So all that combined with the theft and then the move, have made things very difficult for us this year.  Apparently when it rains it pours.

But we are still here, and we are not giving up.  We will hang in there and find a way to connect the dots.  When the going gets tough… you know the rest:-)

The future belongs to the brave.

Changes…

Yes, you guessed it, we have been shuffling and regrouping… again.  While the core of the band has stayed firmly in place, weathering our relocation and a slew of other difficulties, we did lose guitar player Cassie Luger, as well as dancer Stephanie Griffith.  I can’t help but wonder if the robbery was kind of a wake up call. Stephanie had only signed on temporarily to fill in as a dancer when we found ourselves in a pinch. She wants to go into law; you can’t argue with that. We were still sorry to see both of them leave us, but they each cited their desire to return to school.  We wish them the very best. 

Much success to you both.

But without any further delay, I bet you were wondering who those new faces on the masthead were…

Our new Guitar player will be Mike Perez.  Mike is an excellent guitarist who came to us from Miami.  We met him in Tallahassee before we moved, and we decided to make him a part of the band.  He’s a genuinely good guy, and I have to say that he has jumped right in with both feet.  He has made himself a real part of the team, and we are looking forward to playing shows with him this month.  His comfort and mastery over the instrument make him a joy to work with, and his laid back demeanor is a nice addition to the bands social dynamic.

We have also added dancer Jenne Vermes.  Jenne (pronounced kind of like “Jenny”) is an award winning dancer and dance-instructor whose wide range of talents made her a must have choice for CXS.  She plays half a dozen (or more) instruments, but she really shines as a dancer.  Jenne is a no nonsense personality who gets things done.  Her dance skills make her one of the most technically gifted dancers we have ever had.  She has demonstrated a real skill for learning and executing new choreography with ease.  We believe she will be something special on the left side of the stage:-)

I ask that all of our fans give these new band members a warm welcome and all of their support.  It is reallly difficult to just jump into someone elses shoes, and it requires real desire and courage. It is through their efforts we are able to stay the course and continue making music and playing live shows.

On the Road Again;

Today we leave for New York.  Soon we will catch our flight to Germany and begin a fairly short tour (one month) that will be highlighted by our first appearance at the Amphi-Festival in Cologne (Köln) and a city festival in Rostock called the Hanse Sail Festival.   Beyond that we will be playing a select few shows in Austria and Germany.  These will be the only shows in Europe scheduled for this year.  We want to ask our fans to please come out and support our concerts… and to bring a friend or two (or ten:-) ) if you can. 

OK- We understand that many of you are used to Crüxshadows coming very close to your home city.  We know that the economy is less than healthy at this point.  We understand that the World Cup ate up everyone’s money!  But it is important for the future of CXS that we get a really good crowd at these shows.  If you can’t make it, please help us by spreading the word about the upcoming dates via your blog, facebook, myspace, twitter, and vampirefreaks if you can.

For those of you who don’t live in Europe, I’m sorry but we are unsure as to the status of our next US tour.  We will be going on the road in America, but we want to have a new album before we commit to a long tour.  An album of course takes time, but with the studio completed we are looking forward to getting things done quickly.  We will be playing DragonCon which happens September 3rd through the 6th in Atlanta GA,  and we will be returning to the Gothic Cruise which departs September 25th from Miami FL.  Tickets for both events are still available from their respective web sites.

A Call to Arms…

So we are off again to conquer the world, and to spread our music across the globe.  We are off to hopefully make a difference to someone somewhere.  We are prepared for all the difficulties that may lie ahead, but we can’t really do it without you.

We need our fans more than ever.  We need people who love the band and our music to make some noise.  I know there is no new release yet (We’re working on it).  I know the economy is down.  I know it can be hard to believe in, or get excited about, anything these days.  But if everyone could help us spread the word; text someone, email somebody, twitter your friends, or even link to our quicksilver video… well, it would make a difference.  Ask the DJ at the club to play Cruxshadows, and if he doesn’t… ask again. Better yet, ask them to play the quicksilver single. Get people to watch the video… your mom, dad, neighbor, coworker, classmate, or favorite complete stranger. It all helps.

In the coming months we will make some of our older CDs available through Wishfire Records.  The remastered recordings will give many of our early works the sound that they deserve.  Look for the Wishfire Records name.  When a  CXS disc is labeled Wishfire Records, it means that most of the money actually makes it to Cruxshadows.

Thank you everyone.  I look forward to seeing you on the road (or on the sea) soon.

Live Love Be Believe-

Rogue

I am sure that some of you have noticed the “radio silence” emanating from all things cruxshadows (the website, Facebook, myspace, twitter etc) the past few days.  There is unfortunately, a good reason for it.
This past Wednesday the band flew back into the United States… into JFK airport in New York City.  Up until that point things had moved much smoother than we had anticipated, and after a very long tour in Europe spanning three months, we were happy to be back in the US.

I’m not sure the US was so happy to see us.

Shortly after leaving the airport we stopped to get some food.  We parked more or less in front of the restaurant entrance, on a busy intersection in Brooklyn to grab some sushi.  We locked the doors and everyone hurried inside.  In the ten to fifteen minutes that we were gone, we found that the locks to our doors were removed leaving behind large empty holes.  Everything of value, more or less, was taken.  My computer, Jessica’s computer, Jen’s computer, Zack’s computer, Cassie’s computer, Justin’s computer, & the stage computer were all taken ;Six macs and one IBM laptop PC.  They stole our earnings from the tour, some of our audio equipment, our back up drives, Jessica’s jewelry (including her silver Cruxshadows trifix), much of our data including contact information and personal information, countless iPods, and just about anything else we had.  A few of us lost complete bags with so many things of value inside I don’t know where to begin.  We spent the next few hours dealing with the police.  The speed and expertise involved lead them to believe it was not a coincidental theft, but rather an act in which we were targeted.  The persons responsible for this knew precisely what they were doing.

The impact that this has is currently incalculable, but given the difficult economic times we are all facing, we are not sure exactly how we will recover from all this.

But we will.

Like the theme of so many of our songs, we refuse to go down without a fight.  So now we are focusing our efforts on getting through this situation and rebuilding, and preventing this from ever happening again.  This may however, put some serious dampers on our plans for 2010 and quickly completing our new album.  But truly I have conceded nothing on that front either.

It will just be… harder to do.

Aside from that, I think it bares stating that although we have been in very low spirits, we are in all likelihood very fortunate.  We are all of us alive and safe, an outcome less certain given a number of other scenarios that might have occurred.

Keep us in your thoughts.  We have some serious difficulties looming ahead.  And if you live in the New York City area and hear anything about a bunch of macbooks and macbook-pros turning up under suspicious circumstances, well… feel free to let us know.

I will post again soon, but we have a lot of work to do to keep ourselves afloat…

I guess we are underdogs… again:-)

Live Love Be Believe

Rogue

ADDENDUM:  It has come to my attention that there are a number of individuals trying to raise money to help the Cruxshadows after the recent theft of our stuff.  Mostly we have seen websites linked to paypal, soliciting donations.  The truth is that while we could really use some help, we cannot in good conscience allow our fans to donate to any of these sites without warning them.  None of these individuals collecting money have coordinated any of their efforts with us, and there is no guarantee that any of this money is coming to Cruxshadows. I know that most of the people who are doing this are honest and well meaning, but it just creates a situation where the odd opportunist could take advantage of not only the band and our misfortune, but also our fans.